Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Blueberry G3 Imac boot-black rectangle middle of screen

B

bobcaryh

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 15, 2018
49
7
Hi all
I recently got an old G3 iMac. When it boots I get the chime, then see an apple, then the middle of the screen is covered with a black rectangle. Almost like a message window that never showed or something. Any idea what it could be? I have tried booting from the drive, also holding C and booting from a install CD and get the same thing. Thanks in advance!
 
Sounds like a kernel panic that never has time to draw correctly.

Could be any number of things, but bad RAM could be a cause. Try swapping and/or re-seating the RAM.
 
Checked the pram battery and has 0.1 bolts. Pulled the main ram chip and now it boots to the folder with a question mark so that’s good at least. Looks like that ram may have been bad. It’s the one under the metal cage. I left the other one in.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MBAir2010
I’m going to download a fresh copy of 9.2 and try to boot off of that. The guy I got it from said he was trying to install panther from cd when it rebooted with the black rectangle. I think he just hosed the system or the hard drive happened to go bad. Hopefully I can get it to boot from cd. You just hold down c on boot right?
 
Either holding c doesn’t work or the cd drive is bad. I burned a copy of 9.2.2 and it won’t load off the cd. Just get the question mark folder icon
 
Do you have access to an ATAPI (IDE) CD ROM Drive ? A full size one might also work in place of the Hard Drive.

Failure of the CD Drives is pretty common.

Without other hardware, it's pretty difficult to diagnose further. :(
 
MacTech68 said:
Do you have access to an ATAPI (IDE) CD ROM Drive ? A full size one might also work in place of the Hard Drive.

Failure of the CD Drives is pretty common.

Without other hardware, it's pretty difficult to diagnose further. :(
Click to expand...
No I wish I did.
Is there a way to install an os on the hard drive from another mac I have? Then just put it back in the iMac
 
What System version is on the other Mac? I'm not certain if later OSX Finder versions will bless a 'Classic' MacOS System Folder (critical for booting).

The hard drive is also ATA/PATA/IDE

You may want to try looking at the lens on the CD Drive - I'm assuming this is a tray-loading drive (like a PC laptop).

Also verifying your USB keyboard is working might help.

Pics anytime could/might be helpful too.
 
Yeah I’ve got no ide cd rom. I ordered a new hard drive for it. Cleaned the lens on the cd rom to no avail. I can hear it moving around just not sure why it’s not reading. I ordered a 9.2.2 apple cd from eBay hoping maybe the burn copy I made was bad but the mac garden website said it was bootable.

I sense maybe it is going to become an aquarium lol
 
MacTech68 said:
Entirely up to you. Everything is fixable, it just depends on how much time, effort and money you want to throw at it ;)
Click to expand...
I just can’t figure why holding down alt on boot doesn’t give me the boot menu or an error message or something.
 
Still toying around with it. Got new ram. Brand new. Put it in and I’m back to it booting to the black rectangle on the screen. Without the ram in there I get the folder with question mark. I’m putting the ram into the slot with the small metal cage you need to remove.
image.jpg
 
Try holding down the 'command' and 's' keys on a cold bootup. Keep holding them down until you see white text on a black background.

At the prompt, type

fsck -fy

and hit the enter/return key

what is the result ?
 
After this I removed the ram again. Ctrl s on cold boot does nothing. It goes to the folder question mark again.
 
Yeah I didn’t know there was a minimum. I’ll grab some more memory and try it out again lol
 
Just tried with the supplied ram which was 256 total and I get that text screen above with ctrl s. Just says release ppc panic.
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    493.8 KB · Views: 99
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back